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thick outlines is flash

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thick outlines is flash

This may be a stupid question, but...

I've been manually putting fat outlines around my characters in flash with the line tool and was just wondering if there is some kind of "automatic fat outline" filter or plugin that wraps a fat line around a symbol or something.

All those old cartoon network shows that were digital looked like they used something like that, or maybe the artists that worked on them were just that good?

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http://ben-reynolds.com Animation and Design

http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design

I met a gal who had worked on Captain Flamingo. It was her job to add fat outlines (known as perimeter oultines, terminology as taught to me by Steve Worth on another forum). She told me how it was done.
Assuming the character is a comp symbol on a SINGLE layer in a scene comp symbol, on your character layer convert all motion tweens to keys, remove tweens. Go through and break apart each frame. To make sure the inside lines are finer, I'd modify lines into shapes frame by frame. The character has no strokes on it now.
Using the ink bottle ('s') , go through frame by frame and magically add the perimeter outline. With frames selected you can change the width and/or type of the outlines in the properties panel.
The preceding makes alot of assumptions; how well you know flash, working with comps, that your character is animated.

I met a gal who had worked on Captain Flamingo. It was her job to add fat outlines (known as perimeter oultines, terminology as taught to me by Steve Worth on another forum). She told me how it was done.
Assuming the character is a comp symbol on a SINGLE layer in a scene comp symbol, on your character layer convert all motion tweens to keys, remove tweens. Go through and break apart each frame. To make sure the inside lines are finer, I'd modify lines into shapes frame by frame. The character has no strokes on it now.
Using the ink bottle ('s') , go through frame by frame and magically add the perimeter outline. With frames selected you can change the width and/or type of the outlines in the properties panel.
The preceding makes alot of assumptions; how well you know flash, working with comps, that your character is animated.

Thats my thinking too, but thats a lot of converting to keys, breaking and ink bottling. I'd recommend duplicating your scene symbol and doing the, break/ink bottle on the layer behind. That way you'll keep your symbol animation in front and the thick outline behind.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

....... I'd recommend duplicating your scene symbol and doing the, break/ink bottle on the layer behind. That way you'll keep your symbol animation in front and the thick outline behind.

......

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaa! :)

Wow, thanks guys, I wasn't expecting such a huge response. Um, here's an example of what I was talking about:

I did that with the line tool.

So far I've tried what toolk9 suggested, but it really didn't work to well; maybe I did something wrong but my resized fill didn't match up right.

I'll keep playing with it though and let you guys know what I come up with

http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design

Oh, wait, I got it to work! The only thing I don't like about using the expand fill method is that you have to individually expand each fill seperately. It won't let you select all your fills at once.

It's still better than having to trace over the entire thing by hand though!

I met a gal who had worked on Captain Flamingo. It was her job to add fat outlines (known as perimeter oultines, terminology as taught to me by Steve Worth on another forum). She told me how it was done.
Assuming the character is a comp symbol on a SINGLE layer in a scene comp symbol, on your character layer convert all motion tweens to keys, remove tweens. Go through and break apart each frame. To make sure the inside lines are finer, I'd modify lines into shapes frame by frame. The character has no strokes on it now.
Using the ink bottle ('s') , go through frame by frame and magically add the perimeter outline. With frames selected you can change the width and/or type of the outlines in the properties panel.
The preceding makes alot of assumptions; how well you know flash, working with comps, that your character is animated.

This is also a genious idea, I'm going to try this next!

http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design

Oh, wait, I got it to work! The only thing I don't like about using the expand fill method is that you have to individually expand each fill seperately. It won't let you select all your fills at once.

It's still better than having to trace over the entire thing by hand though!

This is also a genious idea, I'm going to try this next!

Wait, man! Read APe's response to me. His is even easier; duplicating the symbol comp and placing it on a lower layer. Saves converting all those interior lines to shapes.

Wait, man! Read APe's response to me. His is even easier; duplicating the symbol comp and placing it on a lower layer. Saves converting all those interior lines to shapes.

Wow, that's it! That works like a charm, thanks a lot!

http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design

Its hard to explain in a paragraph, but one idea is after you've animated the characters scene in its normal 1pt setting. Place the individual layers onto one layer. Convert that entire character animation layer to a symbol. Open the symbol to the edit mode and duplicate that animated timeline.
On original layer (bottom) increase the outline to 3pt. Take the duplicate layer and place it over the bottom layer so that only the thickness shows.

Also, you will have to have knowledge of how to use edit Multiple keyframes feature.

I hope that makes sense.